


Lost Faith

by Chocolatequeen



Series: Doomsday ficlets and drabbles: angsty [5]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Doomsday Month, Episode: s02e13 Doomsday, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 19:58:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7452097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chocolatequeen/pseuds/Chocolatequeen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor once said that if he believed in one thing, he believed in Rose. Believed in her ability to take on the universe, believed in her compassion, believed she was almost as invincible as she thought she was. He even believed her when she said she would stay with him forever. </p><p>Then he stepped into a white room, and all that belief evaporated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Faith

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another Doomsday ficlet inspired by [a gifset](http://chocolatequeennk.tumblr.com/post/147201365516/once-upon-a-time-hed-believed-in-her-believed).

Once upon a time, he’d believed in her. Believed that Rose Tyler could do anything she put her mind to, believed that nothing, not even the devil, could defeat her.

Believed she would stay with him forever. 

Then he’d felt the storm coming, and there was something else he believed in. He believed he would lose her one day, that something would tear her out of his arms, no matter how hard he tried to hold onto her.

When he stepped into the stark, white chamber in Torchwood that sat so close to a breach in the walls between the worlds, he wanted to throw up. This was it. This was where he would lose Rose. The timelines were clear, even if he couldn’t quite see how it happened. 

He sent her to Pete’s World so he would know she was safe, even if they weren’t together. But she came back, because she was Rose Tyler and the one thing _she_  believed was that she was never going to leave him. 

The Doctor stared at her, at the determined love in her eyes, and for a moment, he allowed her belief to bolster his hope. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he wouldn’t lose her, maybe they could be together forever. 

The timelines still tugged at him, and desperate to ignore what he instinctively knew was still coming, he ran around with manic energy, directing Rose to help him and cracking jokes like they weren’t hovering on the edge of doomsday. Rose was staying with him. She’d promised, more than once. 

And then her lever clicked off line, and he felt the timelines tighten around her. He watched with his hearts in his throat when she let go of her clamp to push it back up into the online position, and then was forced to wrap her small hands around the lever in a desperate bid to hang on. 

When Pete appeared just in time to catch her, the Doctor was grateful he wouldn’t see his love swallowed by the void, but that was the only consolation. She was still lost to him, still separated from him forever. 

Pressed up against the wall, he could feel her mind reaching out for him as the walls between the worlds continued to stitch themselves back together. For just a moment, he held the essence of who she was to him, giving her all the love and tenderness he could before the walls became too solid for even telepathic contact. 

Back in the TARDIS, he tried to find some way to bring her home, like she’d pleaded with him in those final moments. He worked day and night, scouring the secrets of the universe, but in the end, all he found was a way to say goodbye.

And so, when Rose asked him if she’d ever see him again, he had to give her the answer neither of them wanted to believe: you can’t.


End file.
